In the spring of 2026, five Austrian educational institutions participated in the beta testing phase of the Pix platform for competency-based assessment of digital skills. A total of 286 students and eight teachers from various educational sectors took part in the trial. The participating institutions included lower and upper secondary schools, as well as a college of education.
The participating institutions thus covered a broad spectrum of the Austrian educational landscape, ranging from middle schools and general-education high schools (AHS) to vocational schools and the college of education.
High Acceptance and Positive Feedback
Overall, the initial results paint a very positive picture. The platform’s technical functionality, visual design, and clear layout received particularly high ratings. Students also rated navigation through the assignments overwhelmingly positively.
Based on 118 pieces of feedback analyzed from two schools, the categories “Technical Functionality” and “Clarity of Presentation” each achieved satisfaction ratings of around 89 percent. The relevance of the tasks and the ease of navigation within the platform were also rated positively by the majority of participants.
Many students found working on the tasks to be varied and motivating. They particularly highlighted that the tasks assess digital competencies through practical and authentic situations.
Positive Feedback from Teachers
The participating teachers also rated the platform’s concept very positively. In particular, they highlighted the competency-based approach, the strong practical relevance of the assignments, and their motivating effect on the students.
From the teachers’ perspective, the results provide a nuanced insight into the students’ existing digital competencies. In addition, in certain areas, the approach offers opportunities for assessing competencies that go beyond existing assessment tools.
Valuable Suggestions for Further Development
The beta testing phase also provided important insights for further optimizing the platform. Room for improvement was identified, in particular, in the clarity of individual task descriptions, the quality of translations, and navigation features—such as the ability to return to questions that had already been answered.
Outlook
The Austrian beta testing phase has provided promising initial insights into the acceptance of competency-based and practical digital assessment methods among students and teachers. The experiences and feedback gathered are now being incorporated into the platform’s ongoing technical and pedagogical development.
The goal is to tailor the assessment of digital competencies even more closely to different age groups, school requirements, and curricula in the future. In this way, DigiCLASS aims to make an important contribution to the well-founded and data-driven advancement of digital education.
Organizations that would like to participate in the next phases of the pilot program and test DigiCLASS in practice can register using this registration form.